Posts Tagged ‘hiring proposal consultants’

Why Finding Rock Star Government Proposal Managers is Tough

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

I was discussing with a colleague the other day how tough it is to find really great government proposal managers. By great I mean proposal managers who can pull off a real feat: lead proposal teams to spectacular wins, while doing it in style. They don’t only manage the proposal process, but also make sure that the actual content of the proposal, including the solution, is of a winning quality. They also lead in a way that makes it less stressful on the team and more fun.

I started thinking – what specific skills make those proposal managers great? And I started making a list that went on and on. As I continued, it became increasingly clearer why it’s tough. I thought I’d share this list with you. You may find it useful for staffing purposes or even professional growth purposes – and please, let me know if I missed something really important.

So, here are the attributes of a great government proposal manager (in no particular order – this is a stream of consciousness):

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The Skinny on Proposal Consultants – Part 8: How to manage proposal consultant costs

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Consultants often get the blame for high proposal costs, because their fees are an obvious high-ticket item. Many business developers, however, tell me that when they tally up the proposal costs at the end of the proposal effort, it is not the consultants that blow the budget. Ironically, it’s the in-house employee costs that take them way over the plan. Either way, there are three solutions that business developers can adopt to keep proposal costs under control – which I am going to discuss today.

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The Skinny on Proposal Consultants – Part 3: How Do Capture and Proposal Consultants Charge for Their Services and Structure Compensation?

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

This is a third of my posts on the skinny on proposal consultants. If you have limited experience hiring proposal consultants, and wonder how they charge for their services as they help you develop your winning proposal – or are curious if there are better ways to negotiate and work with consultants – read on.

Proposal consultants that charge on an hourly basis

The majority of capture and proposal consultants charge on a strictly hourly basis. This means that if they work only one hour in a day, they will charge you for only that hour. If, on the other hand, they work a 14-hour day, they will get paid for all 14 hours, unlike exempt company employees who get paid for 8 hours each day no matter how long they work. A lot of consultants in this profession prefer to work this way because they come from a company environment where they are used to routinely work 80-hour weeks being paid for 40 hours. I will address how you control your business development budget in this situation in my later posts.

Capture and proposal consultants that charge flat rates

Other capture and proposal consultants will establish a flat daily rate usually based on the cost of 8, or more commonly, 10 hours of their work. This is what you will pay them no matter how few or how many hours they put in.

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